Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What you've got is in fact a people problem

blog.glyph.im

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 131 posts

Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem

#61

Post by vogelke »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #24
btbuildem wrote: post #4

It often is a people problem, and when it is, it's likely to be at the leadership level. What stumps me however is how to move past those problems -- when the decision makers at an organization themselves are what's dragging the ship down, how will things ever change? Blog author doesn't cover it, but my uneducated guess is... the consult ends with a technical recommendation, but the people problem remains unresolved…

I am familiar with a particular small business. They have this loop: 1. Product and Engineering cooperatively develop a project, scope milestones, cut tickets, do agile, eng writes the code and iteratively works with product to incorporate feedback and it's a grand ole time 2. They get about 80% done with implementation (so they're about 90% if the way through the entire project, impl is usually about half the time)…

Sounds a lot like working with the US Air Force, unfortunately.

Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem

#62

Post by joeig »

ilaksh wrote: post #8

My suspicion is that a lot of this comes down to budget pressure causing management to constantly discourage efforts by technical teams to invest time in the quality of their systems rather than push out more features. Then the same problems start popping up and the manager loses faith in their team. The times they said "no" to infrastructure development and working down technical debt may not even enter their mind.…

I think it helps to speak the same „language“ as the manager. Add price tags to the infrastructure development or technical debt. This may add an important perspective to the discussion for both sides.

Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem

#63

Post by hinkley »

dang wrote: post #28

Jerry Weinberg's classic Secrets of Consulting has tons of hard-won wisdom about this kind of thing. " No matter how it looks at first, it's always a people problem ." - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... He posted once to HN ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1825352 - but start here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1813443 ) Edit: There's also Gerald M. Weinberg has died - http…

Unless it's a DNS problem.

Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem

#64

Post by hinkley »

nine_zeros wrote: post #35
ilaksh wrote: post #8

My suspicion is that a lot of this comes down to budget pressure causing management to constantly discourage efforts by technical teams to invest time in the quality of their systems rather than push out more features. Then the same problems start popping up and the manager loses faith in their team. The times they said "no" to infrastructure development and working down technical debt may not even enter their mind.…

> My suspicion is that a lot of this comes down to budget pressure causing management to constantly discourage efforts by technical teams to invest time in the quality of their systems rather than push out more features. This is only partly true. It is true that management sometimes faces budget pressure. But the real skill lies in what they do next. They could - easily - come up with a strategy of feature delivery,…

It's not what down-managers do. It is what up-managers do.

And you can see this passion play coming a mile away if you figure out which one of these you have when times are still good.

Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem

#65

Post by hinkley »

PakG1 wrote: post #14

What is fascinating to me about technical people is the particular subculture that sincerely believes that technology will solve the people problem. I recently got into a long thread argument with someone on HN about this. The person was adamant that people problems can NOW finally be solved by designing technology to be able to handle adversarial and incompetent actors. But the problems that such software tries to s…

I was watching some interview long ago when the guest hit it square on the head. My guess is that it was Joel Spolsky, but only because no other names come to mind as being plausible.

Essentially the rant goes: So all of these people who were not particularly good at people skills in high school go into a career where they think people skills won't matter as much, and check out for 4 years while their fellow classmates are honing their interpersonal skills in one of the most intense personal growth periods of a young adult's life.

Then they graduate, get out into the world and realize that it is all people problems, and now they're even further behind their peers than when they went into college.

Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem

#66

Post by trilbyglens »

PakG1 wrote: post #14

What is fascinating to me about technical people is the particular subculture that sincerely believes that technology will solve the people problem. I recently got into a long thread argument with someone on HN about this. The person was adamant that people problems can NOW finally be solved by designing technology to be able to handle adversarial and incompetent actors. But the problems that such software tries to s…

I actually belive that a lot of the world's hard problems have been, in many ways, made worse by this attitude. Fb being so slow and reluctant to acknowledge their pivotal role in polarizing the world for instance.

Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem

#67

Post by hinkley »

BeetleB wrote: post #55
OldGuyInTheClub wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The consultant is being paid by management. S/he is beholden to them. If anything can be traced back to a group or individual, it will be, and it won't be pleasant for anyone who believed the request for honest feedback.

> The consultant is being paid by management. S/he is beholden to them. Quite the opposite. One of the reasons people go into consulting (and I don't mean working for a consulting company), is precisely because they're not beholden to them. They have much more freedom to set the terms than employees do. If a company wants them to reveal the individual, they'll be happy to give them the middle finger and let them know…

The point remains that the messenger may deliver a message that invites retaliation, and even if their plan is to protect their sources, they may fail to do so.

Someone who thinks they will protect you may be as big of a wildcard as someone who demonstrates clearly that they won't, because you haven't given anything really damning to the latter.

Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem

#68

Post by lifeisstillgood »

>>> want honest feedback and that they are safe to offer it

The key word is safe. It’s not safe. Or they don’t think it is safe.

The problem is almost always going to be the person asking and saying “it’s safe”. Or their boss. Which just repeats the problem one level up.

And you know the solution?

Weirdly it’s democracy. The idea of enough of us know the secret we can replace the problem. Often we don’t have to do the socially difficult problem of explaining why that politician is a knucklehead, we just don’t vote for them.

I had never seen democracy as a solution to awkward social hierarchy problems !

Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem

#69

Post by hinkley »

justin_oaks wrote: post #12
cebert wrote: post #2

> Talk to your ICs, and — taking care to make sure they understand that you want honest feedback and that they are safe to offer it — ask them what problems your organization has. Can you reasonably expect for there to be a true “safe space” in a professional setting? It’s always good to be candid and transparent, but I’d never assume I’m in a complete safe space no matter which organization I am in.

Different bosses will react differently. There are bosses who get violently angry and fire people. Nobody will trust that boss with honest feedback... ever. There are the bosses who are simply dismissive of what their staff is already telling them. In that case, the boss is having this meeting to tell his staff "I ignored and forgot everything you told me previously, but this time will be different. I'm prepared to l…

Often the first contractor to come along ends up telling the boss everything that his own employees have been complaining about for years, and either he can't hear it, or they stopped saying it because it gets them nowhere.

Few people continually remind you of the places where you are disappointing them. They've said it a dozen times, they know it's pointless to say it again. Which complicates things because now what you think they are upset with you about are either entirely not the real reasons, or are just proxies for them. But you already fucked up that channel of communication.

Re: What you've got is in fact a people problem

#70

Post by hinkley »

dilyevsky wrote: post #19
cebert wrote: post #2

> Talk to your ICs, and — taking care to make sure they understand that you want honest feedback and that they are safe to offer it — ask them what problems your organization has. Can you reasonably expect for there to be a true “safe space” in a professional setting? It’s always good to be candid and transparent, but I’d never assume I’m in a complete safe space no matter which organization I am in.

Ime it never hurts to share your thoughts candidly with the leadership as long as your thoughts are what leadership wants to hear

Which leadership?

I've had one favorite boss get fired, and at least two leave (forced out/encouraged to go) because they agreed with us but their peers or boss didn't. Agreeing with them is fine until it isn't, and then you're a collaborator.

And then there's agreeing with the VP or CTO, but the people between you don't, and try to suppress your enthusiasm. If you go over their heads it better be to get transferred to another team instead of trying to change things in place, because now you're squeezing them and they will retaliate.

Post reply on HN